


Ill] 

ill P 
wil IHil! Ill II 



I J If If ill H I ml HI Hi Hi 






NkHj;!:;;;i m: 



~0-r 






ADDEESS 



PRESIDENT LYON G. TYLER, 



ON THE OCCASION OP THE CELEBRATION i:V 



William anfl Mary College anfl tlie A.P.V.A. 



FIRST SETTLEMENT OF JAMESTOWN, 




JS/Lay 13, 1895. 



<s^o 




•a'**' 






>7#of 




MAIN 



JAMESTOWN ISLAND 



VA. 



BcxcW <\ivev 



"ev. 

Tho, 




^.IDIDIRIESS- 



Gentlemen of the William and Mary Col- 
lege, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
Sir Francis Bacon declared that in the 
arts and sciences the first invention is 
of more consequence than all the im- 
provements afterwards, and that in king- 
dcms, "the first foundation or planta- 
tion is of more noble dignity and merit 
than all that followeth." 

He explains this by resembling them 
tc the creation of the world. In that 
irublimcst of all chapters, chap. I, of Gen- 
esis, we are told that the earth was 
without form and void, and darkress was 
upon the face of the deep. The effect is 
sublime when the sun and moon mil 
stars take their places in the skies, and 
the fowl of the air, the fish of the sea, 
and the beasts of the earth rej'ice in their 
marvellous light. 

But for tne plantation at Jamestown 
there would have been no Virginia, no 
New England, and no United States. 
Within the narrow limits of the country 
between the James and York rivers, in 
ekiding this island, have occurred the 
most important events affecting the des- 
tiny of the United States, viz.: The set- 
tlement itself at this place introducing 
the institutions of marriage, the right of 
trial by jury, the Protestant religion, and 
all the ! principles of English civiliza- 
tion; the birth of the first white child: 
the conversion of the first heathen; the 
arrival of the first cargo of negroes; the 
establishment of the first free school 
(that of Benjamin Syms at Hampton); 
and the first uprising against the Eng- 
lish authority. I refer to the act of the 
Virginia people, denounced by Charles I. 
as 'an assumption of regal power," of 
sending Sir John Harvey close prisoner to 
England, in 1635. Jamestown was never 
anything more than a mere village with 
some considerable buildings of a metro- 
politan character: but as the first inven- 
tion, the first plantation, the first crea- 
tion, it is. in the language of Bacon, "of 
more dignity and merit" than the impe- 
rial cities of New York. New Orlf ans, Phil- 
adelphia, Washington, or Chicago. Its 
first log cabin is of more consequence to 
the Union at large than the proud man- 
sion of the chief executive. Surely, such 
a eharacter in the place justifies the par- 
ticular, even if tedious narrative I intend 
to-day. 

Jamestown Island contains, according 
to the survey made in recent times, 1,600 
acres, and it averages 2 1-2 miles in 
length by 1-2 mile in breadth. At the 
time ( i' the arrival of the settlers on May 
1.3th, 1607. it lay in the land of the Pas- 
beheagh Indians, one of the tribes which 
subjection to the chief, Powhatan: 
At I his time, and for many years later, 
it was connected on the wesl with the 
mainland by a neck about 30 feel wide 
called the "Sandy Bay." Vgainsl this 
rwck beat the waters of Powhatan creek, 
which came out of the main woods at 
right angles, but which, repulsed by the 



sandy barrier, found an easier access to 
the river by a long deviation to the east. 
This part of the creek was called Back 
river, bm is called more frequently now 
the Thorjughfare. 

More than 100 year's ago. the ceareless 
action of the water, making inroads on 
both sides, consumed the passage-^ ay 13 
the main, and thereupon Mr. John Am- 
bler, then owning the greater part of the 
Island, and residing c:t it at the place 
we are now holding ou celebration, made 
a causeway, where the neck was sub- 
merged; and when this, in the course ot 
time, was overwhelmed, Col. Zach Durfey 
made a bridge from the main to the isl- 
and very near the causeway. (1.) As all 
but a few of the piles of this bridge 
have disappeared, no one contemplating 
for the first time the waste of inter- 
vening waters, perhaps a half mile in 
width, would suspect the course of na- 
ture: but. deep cut on the other side, 
where the Pasbeheagh Indians had an 
ancient town, and whero, in 1621, 24 acres 
were laid for a glass house, the first in 
America, is still to be seen the old road 
by which the teeming life of the little 
capital was connected with the world at 
large. 

The island itself, a fact which has not 
been generally noticed, was divided into 
two natural parts by a swamp stretching 
from Back river to the James, and it 
was-- at the eastern side that the settlers 
disembarked. The land of this portion 
was furrowed with ridges and swamps, 
running north and south for the most 
part, and flanked on the south by a 
ridge along the river side named "Goose 
Hill." The extreme eastern point was 
called Black Point. The en tensive labors 
of Mr. Barney, the present proprietor of 
the island, has in the last year or two 
filled up the most of these swamps once 
so injurious to health, and none would 
suspect in the beautiful and level fields 
the existence of any ridges whatever. 
Jamestown Island now is as healthy as 
any portion of A'irginia. This eastern 
portion of the plantation was called 
"James Island"; the part on the west sid? 
of the dividing swamp standing high and 
firm, the "Main Island," and beyond the 
neck of the Sandy Bay stretched the 
mainland — "the main," as it was called. 

The first houses of the settlers, who 
numbered about 104, were little cabins 
thatched with reeds and grass, or holes 
in the ground, the whole enclosed by a 
palisade of tushes and a triangular fort. 

The church was first an old sail huns 
to the great trees that tuen densely cov- 
ered the landscape. ,?he pulpit was a 
bar of wood nailed to two neighboring 
trees, and the audience sat upon unhewn 
logs during service. Set down in the 
rank woods and marshes, supported ' y 
ttic scantiest and meanest of supplies, 
prevented from attending to the • f 
need of better lodging or of providing 
proper crops for their sustenance, con- 
• vinul by order of the London Company 



V) 



and their own commanders to gathering 
ship-loads of mas's, cedar, black walnut, 
clapboard, and gold ore, the poor settlers. 
anion? whom were many heroic souls, 
died like sheep till only forty remained. 

In Jar.uarv, IMS, arrived "the fiist sup- 
ply," consisting' of 120 men, worse provided 
in every way than the first comers. A 
lire breaking out en the 7th of January, 
1608, immediately afterwards, destroyed 
the crazy shant.es so far erected together 
with the library of uie gentle minister, 
Rev. Robert Hunt, who never complained. 
A log church was thereupon erected and 
some few poor houses of a similar char- 
acter. 

As spring came en four acres of trees 
were cut down and the ground prepared 
for corn, hunger, sickness, and assaults 
from the Indians preventing anything fur- 
ther being dene. 

Then came the "second supply," con- 
sisting of sixty emigrants, principally 
men of gentle birth, and some ;'ew Poles, 
sent over to make pitch, tar, potasn, and 
glass. This crowd were also so nieanl; 
provided by the company that, with the 
exception of a few who remained guard 
on James Island, they weir dispersed 
abroad at various places to live on cys- 
■ irs or by begging from tin India 

Then followed the "third supply," con- 
sisting of "00 persons, who, coming with- 
out a commander— Sir Thomas i 
' Sir Thomas Dale, and Sir George Scmers 
being wrecked on the Bermuda 'fel 
proved of a very unruly disposition. 
tered on the island, without any i 
ions except a little rotten beer and moul- 
dy bread, they fell like locusts upon the 
small acreage of corn which had 
planted, and in three days, at the most, 
devoured the whole. When on the 20th 
of May, 1610, Sir Thomas Gates arrivi d 
from the Bermudas with 250 nun, there 
were found of 800 persons hi I 
ported, but 60 alive! Starvation and ; ; s- 
ease had clone the business for the -est. 
A final abandonment of the colony was 
contemplated and the ships with all on 
board had dropped down the rive r some 
distance when the timely arrival of Lord 
Delaware fixed the settlement again rn 
James Island. (2.) 

Lord Delaware mounted two or *hree 
canon at the fort, erected several new log 
houses and built a block house and a new 
church, which Strachey, his secretary, 
desciibes as 60 by 24. (3.) It was in this 
church, it may be presumed, that Poca- 
hontas was married to John Rolfe in 1614. 

But all the structures were at this time 
so frail that Sir Thomas Dale, in May. 
1611, is credited with repairing the "fall- 
ing church" and storehouse, and digging 
a new well to amend the bad water of 
the old. He also built a powder-house, 
munition-house and bridge, the first in 
the country. During most of this time 
the war with the Indians continued un- 
interruptedly. 

When Cant. Samuel Argall arrived, as 
governor, in 1617, he found, as he report- 
ed, things down again, and not above 
five or six houses at Jamestown tit to be 
inhabitated. 

This was the period of martial law es- 
tablished by the Treasurer of the Com- 



pany, Sir Thomas Smith, when the colo- 
nists were neld as ser\ ants under a gall- 
ing tyranny enforced by heartless gov- 
ernors and were not allowed the rights 
of property. At the close of twelve years 
from the first settlement there were only 
ten or tw-elve houses in Jamestown of tbf- 
saddest make— the only redeeming featuie 
being a new church of timber, 50 by 20 
feetf "built wholly at the charge of the 
inhabitants." 

Beyond the Sandy Bay, in the Pasbe- 
heagh country, there were some few slight 
houses, and elsewhere, as at Dale's boast- 
ed City of Henrico. On Farrar's Island 
there were some decayed buildings, partly 
framed and partly brick. (4.) 

The adnrnistration of the Karl of 
Southampton, which succeeded Sir Thom- 
as Smith's, produced a marvellous change. 
The Company in London became the nur- 
sery of English liberty. Liberty of prop- 
erty, of labor, and of person was extend- 
ed in the most ample manner to the 
colonists, and in the church or. Jamu 
Island, there met July 30, 1619, the first 
representative body on the continent of 
America. Twelve years of tyranny and 
enforced starvation had planted but 400 
persons in a total of 10,000 imported. <".) 

Five years of liberty and enlightened 
government under the great Earl and 
his friends, the Sandyses and Farrars m 
England, and Sir George Yardly in Vir- 
ginia, settled there, despite 
massacre, 1232 persons. The log houses 
that were every year or two tumbling 
down were substituted in this tin 
Others which, though principally of fram- 
ed structure, surpassed the best in many 
towns of England. Not a lew of these 
houses were "both ornamental and use- 
ful and fit to give entertainment to men 
of good quality." 

In 1624 there were in Jamestown forty or 
fifty houses instead of ten or twel\ 
iii 1619, and "the houses w-ere forty times 
superior in character." (6.) The g 
part of population was now collected at 
"New Town" en the main island— a much 
more healthful location than the eastern 
part. 

Of the appearance of the place at this; 
time the following description, derived 
mainly-f or the ma nufa cture of beads use- 
ful in the Indi 
the sweet singer 
written of the Italians employed in this: 
factory" in good, strong prose— "a morej 
damned ciew hell never vomited." To. 
promote their return to England, Vincen-J 
zio, the foreman, broke the furnace with 
his crowbar. (7.) 

Some of the products of this first Amer- 
ican factory may be probably seen in the 
blue beads and queer bits of old glass 
still picked up at low tide in the neighborj 
hood of this place. The highway passed 
from the glass factory across the Sandy 
Bay near the old powder magazine erect- 
ed at a later period, then on by the river 
shore till it reached "New- Town" where 
it divided — one branch running along the 
river shore towards "Goose Hill," and the 
other entering into Back street, 143 feet 
distant from the River street. In "New 
Town" the first lot known to us was 
that of Captain Richard Stephens, onf 
of the council, who killed Georsre Hfrri- 
son in a duel, and w r hose widow r after- 



Han trade" .Not long btfoieTN. 
nger, George Sandys, had 



(3) 



wards married Governor Harvey, just as 
hiy son's widow, Frances Culpeper— 1 
mean Samuel Stephens' widow— married 
Sir William Berkeley. He occupied a lot 
facing on the river; and behind him was 
John Chew, a notable merchant and bur- 
gess, ancestor of a prominent family in 
Virginia and Maryland, whose lot faced 
north on the Back street. Next to Ste- 
phens was the lot stretching from street to 
street, of Capt. Ralph Hamor, another of 
the council, who wrote an interesting ac- 
count of Virginia. His neighbor was 
George Menifie, a rising member of the 
council, who took part in the arrest of 
Sir John Harvey in 1635. And next to 
George Menifie, was Harvey himself— not 
yet governor. Fronting on the Back 
street in the rear of Harvey was the 
residence of Dr. John Pott, the surgeon 
of the colony— his lot running back to a 
swamp on Back river, called Doctor's 
swamp. East of New Town was the park 
through which a highway— doubtless a 
continuation of Back street — ran till it 
passed between Sir George Yardley's lot, 
and the lots of Capt. Roger Smith and 
Capt. Willism Pierce, two noted colonists. 
Then it passed over the bridge of the 
dividing swemp into James Island, and 
through the island down to Black Point, 
passing, >t is suppesed, near the early 
church and the block house erected by 
Sir Thomas Gates and the "new block 
house." 
- In this ancient quarter were the lots of 

John Lightfoot, yeorhan and ancient 
planter (who came with Sir Thomas Gates 
in 1610, and of whom the story is tola that 
he had a dancing match with the Devil 
at a place up the river called "Dancing 
Point" for the conversion of a piece of 
marsh into dry land); William Spencer. 
Yeoman and burgess for Mulberry Island 
in 1632; Thomas Pasmore, carpenter; John 
Johnson, yeoman and ancient planter; 
John Southern, gentleman, burgess from 
James City in 1632; Gabriel Holland, bur- 
gess in 1623, and Rev. Richard Buck — who 
each had lots or 12 or more acres on 

ridges bounded by swamps. 

The venerable minister, who had vouch- 
safed God's blessing on the first Ameri- 
can Assembly, had on his lot "a dwell- 
ing house and another little house," and 

his lot was sepaiated from John South- 
ern in James Island by a swamp called 

"Tucker's Hole." 
At the further end of James Island, 



I ing one negro; of James City, or "New 
Town," 1S2, including three negroes; of 
I the glass house, 5; of the main beyond, 
i S8; of the Neck of Land, between Pow- 
j 1)3 tan creek and Back river, 25; Ar- 
| cher's Hope, adjoining, 14; Hog Island, 
j 31, and the plantation oppodite James 
! City, 77. inch ding one negro. The total 
I population of the colony, as observed be- 
1 fore, was 1252. (8.) 

So far in the history of the colony only 
I wooden houses with brick chimneys, or 
the first story brick, had been erected. 
But the extensive emigration produced by 
the civil dissensions in England, brought 
many improvements. A law w.ts passed 
in 1636 which offered the premium of a 
house spot and garden lot to all who 
would build in Jamestown Island. 

In 163$ John Harvey wrote as follows: 
"An act was passed last year for a por- 
tion of land for a house and garden to 
be allotted to every person who would 
build upon it. Twelve houses and stores 
since built in the town, one of brick, by 
the Secretary (Richard Kempe), the fair- 
est ever known in this country for sub- 
stance and uniformity; others have un- 
dertaken to build frame houses to beau- 
tify the place, consonant to the King's 
instructions not to suffer slight cottages 
to be built as heretofore — have largely 
contributed to the building of a brick 
church. A levy is raised for building 
a Slate House at James City." (9.) 

A grant made to John White in 1644 lo- 
cates the new brick church on main isHnd 
to the west of his lot which fronted the 
river bank, adjoined the lot of the Slate 
House, and was bounded north by the 
lot of the minister, Rev. Thomas Hamp- 
ton. 

The State House, as appears by a pat- 
ent in 1667, consisted of three brick build- 
ings connected, which were each 40 by 20 
feet, and were distant from the river 
high-water mark 67 feet. Berkely grant- 
ed the west building of the State House 
to Thomas Ludwell and Thomas Stegge. 
but as this building is mentioned as 
"burned and ruined" (10.) in 1671, it is very 
probable that fire caused the abandon- 
ment of all three buildings. This fire 
must have occurred some years before 
1663, since the House of Burgesses com- 
plained of having been compelled to meet 
for some time in an ale-house, and em- 
powered the Governor to press men rnd 
material to build a new State Hou-. 



near the block house, Richard Tree, car- wh = ch was effected some time after. 
pen , tc T„„ and J D , urs ' es , s for Uog Island in 162 3 The Virginia planters did not like town 

life and preferred to build their houses 



and '29, Edward Grendon, gent, and 
Thomas Sully, of "Neck of Land," yeo- 
man and ancient planter, and others, had 
lots of five oi' six acres, some of them 



on the rivers and creeks at considerable 
distances from one another, and even m 
, 1662 when the population had swollen 
with houses upon them. This portion of to over 30,000, an act was found necessary 
James Island was patenetd as abandoned | for tlle encouragement of Jamestown. 



about 1652 by Edward Travis, whose de- 
scendants long dwelt there and are bur- 
ied in a grove :ontaining, perhaps, the 
grave yard attached to the old wooden 
churches of th< early settlers. 
Tin- earliest monumenl there is thai of 
Edward Travis, the son .if the patentee, 
1700, but the abs< nee of earlier 
tombstones affords no evidence againsl 
the place. 
According to the census in 1624, the pop- 
ulation of James Island was 39. in.lul- 



The Legislature provided that 32 brick 
houses should be built, 40 by 20 feet, with 
walls IS feet high and the roof having a 
foot pitch, (11.) which doubtless meant 2 
stories and a half. As these buildings 
were really r.ever needed, some of them 
were never finished, and some so badly- 
put up as to fall down, and by entail- 
ing much expense, served as one of the 
causes of Bacon's Rebellion. 

We have a description of the town a1 
tliis time. 1676, and are told that it con- 



(4) 



tained, besides the brick church and the 
State House, 12 brick buildings and a 
considerable number of framed buildings. 
(12.). 

Xot all the brick houses were inhabited; 
and those that were, were used as or- 
dinaries for the -ttertainment of visit- 
ors at the meetings of the courts and 
assemblies. . The house of William Drum- 
mond was immediately east of the church, 
making it an easy matter for Bacon 
\Ohen he landed in the night at Sandy 
Bay, at the time of his return from his 
Indian war, to communicate with him. 

During the war which ensued between 
Bacon and Berkeley, Jamestown was de- 
stroyed by the former as a military ne- 
cessity. Richard Lawrence, whose wife 
kept an ordinary to which people of "the 
best quality" resorted, set example 
by firing his house with his own hand. 
Bacon fired the church. Drummond also 
fired his house, but he deserves per- 
petual thanks for saving from the flames 
the public records, by w'hich we are en- 
abled to know as much as we do of the 
place. 

After Bacon's Rebellion the State House 
was rebuilt, but a fire accidently occurred 
in October, 1699, and it was again re- 
duced to ruins, (13.). 

Then the new city of Williamsburg was 
laid out, and a State building, the finest 
on the continent at that time, was erect- 
ed, and given the magnificent title of the 
Capitol. This succumbed to the inevitable 
fiery enemy in 1746, and thereupon a 
fourth State House arose in 1751, made of 
brick burnt near Williamsburg. (14.). 

In fact, I have never seen any evidence 
in our records to support the theory that 
any of the colonial houses were made 
of brick imported from England, as is so 
often said. 

The brick of which the Jamestown 
church of 1638 was constructed was un- 
doubtedly home manufacture taken from 
the clay of James Island, where Alex- 
ander Stomar, brickmaker, patented an 
acre of land, near the brick-kiln there 
mentioned. 

The Capitol building erected in 1751, 
after standing in Williamsburg for eighty- 
one years, was burnt down in 1832. It was 
the building in which Patrick Henry ut- 
tered his immortal defiance against 
George III. 

Fortunately, in each of these conflagra- 
tions the 'public records were 'saved. 
Some were at last burned up in Richmond 
in 1865, but the land records, perhaps the 
most important of all that Drummond 
saved, are still to be seen in the base- 
ment of the Capitol in Richmond. But an 
experience like the past in the matter of 
fires ought to teach our public authori- 
ties how negligent it is— nay, how crimi- 
nal it is — to permit these invaluable re- 
cords to lie where they are, when the 
new Library Building, as the act states in 
its preamble, was created for the ex- 
press purpose of making it a depository 
for the records in the Capitol, which is 
subject every day to the powers of the 
mighty destroyer. The Capitol in Rich- 
mond has already stood longer than its 
fated time. 

It has been a controverted point wheth- 
er the church at Jamestown was ever 
rebuilt after Bacon's Rebellion. Beverley, 



who says that Jamestown was "almost 
deserted" by the removal of the gov- 
ernment to Williamsburg, speaks of the 
burning of the State House in 1693, but 
does not mention the church. The Rev. 
Hugh Jones was minister for some time 
of the church in James City parish, but 
in his "Present State of Virginia" pub- 
lished in 1724, he says that "Jamestown 
consisted of an abundance of brick rub- 
bish and three or four good inhabited 
houses, though the parish is of pretty 
large extent, but less than others." He 
mentions no church at Jamestown. 

Now, it is well known, that before the 
Revolution there was a church on the 
main three miles from Jamestown at 
which Bishop Madison preached. Some 
have thought that references to "the 
church in James City" meant this 
church. Nor does the alms, basin pre- 
served at the seminary, the gift of Sir 
Edmond Andros, nor the baptismal font 
in the (possession of the Monumental 
church, the gift of Martha Jaqueline. 
the wife of Edward Jaqueline, and of Ed- 
ward, their son— the first dated 1694. and 
the second 1733— relieve the doubt, for the 
inscription upon both might apply to a 
church at Jamestown, which place was 
often called "James City," or to a church 
in James City rarish. But the positive 
evidence in favor of the church's exist- 
ence is too strong to admit of doubt. 
The church at Jamestown must have 
been repaired after the fire in 1676, not 
only because the place continued for 
nearly twenty-four years later the seat ol 
the government of the colony, and of 
the county and parish of James City, and 
not only because in the grave-yard is 
the tomb cf John Gough, which describes 
him as "minister of this place" in 
but because there are three witnesses who 
testify directly to !its existence ,some 
years after this time. The first is the 
Rv. John Warden, who when asked by 
the Bishop of London what chunks 
he had preached at in Virginia, replied 
that in 1712, he preached for six months 
at the church in Jamestown. Similar 
inquiry of the Rev. Peter Fontaine evok- 
ed the answer that he had preached it 
Jamestown in 1716; and the Rev. William 
Le Neve, minister of James city parish. 
valued his living at Jamestown at £60. as 
he says in his report to the same party. 
(15.). 

There can be no doubt, then, that the 
church at Jamestown was repaired after 
the fire in 1676, but this may still leave 
the old steeple that is standing, the re- 
lict of the first brick church in Virginia, 
the church of 16§^, the legitimate succes- ^3 
sor of he old sail first put up as an awn- 
ing. 

As loth as I am to dspute the claims or 
the Smithfield church, I am too well ac- 
quainted with the backwardness of ar- 
chitecture in the colony to believe, with- 
out the most positive evidence, that an 
outlying settlement, barely a few years 
old, surrounded by Indians, could vie w.cn 
the Capitol in producing a brick struc- 
ture. That church is attributed to one 
Joseph Bridger, the father of General 
Joseph Bridger, of Isle of Wight. But no 
such mihji appears in the land records or 
in the records of Norfolk county, ad- 
joining, or, in fact, in any of the content- 



(5) 



porary records of Virginia. Gen. Joseph 
Bridger was born in 1631, and the pre- 
sumption is that his father survived him 
for some time, and yet his name iinds no 
record— a fact entirely irreconcilable with 
his supposed importance. The mere im- 
pression of the figures 1632 on a brick, 
without further words, is noi sufficient 
to constitute direct evidence as to the 
founding of the sructure in which it en- 
ters. (16.). 

The Jamestown church had fallen into 
ruins before the Revolution, and Thach- 
er reports (17.) but two houses standing in 
U81 on the banks of the river. John Ty- 
ler, who was present at the celebration ni 
LS07, when Bishop Madison, as President 
of this College, was the leading figure, 
wrote of the broken steeple as all that 
existed then of the building dedicated to 
God. (IS.) Before this time, according to 
Bishop Meade, Join Amoler and the 
Honorable William Lee, of Green Spring, 
who together owned most of the island, 
had made out of the mouldering walls oi 
the church and the old church-yard, the 
present .circumscribed enclosure aDout 
the tombstones that remained. The aiea 
ta.cen in was not over one-third of the 
old church yard. 

In 1822, a second celebration, called a 
•'Jubilee," was held, amid the relics of 
the ancient settlement, the orators as on 
the former occasion being students of 
William end Mary, (19.). 

In 1S48, Benson J. Lossing visited the 
place. John Coke, brother of Richard 
Coke, member' of Congress, then owned 
the island, and Dr. 'bossing made a 
sketch of Sandy Bay from the opposite 
shore, then 400 yards distant from the 
Island. It is much more now. The view 
presents the piles of the bridge des- 
cribed as erected at the old crossing, but 
which had been carried away by a tre- 
mendous gale and high tide some time be- 
fore, submerging nearly the whole is- 
land, for three days' keeping Mr. Coke i 
and his family, who resided there, close | 
prisoners, and causing them to use th^ 
ornamental trees ^nea.r the house for 
fuel in ht( absence of other material, (20.). 
In October, 1856, Bishop Meade visited 
the place, the only access thereto being 
by boats across Back river. During this 
visit, the Bishop, who was accompanied 
by Dr. Silas Totten, Rev. George H. Wil- 
mer and others, accurately measured the 
foundation of the church and found it 
exactly 56 by 28 feet. The tower was con- 
jectured to be 30 feet 'high, and by ac- 
tual measurement proved to be 18 feet 
square. (21.) In Philip Ludwell, of Green 
Spring, had estimated the washing of the 
shore above Jamestown for three miles 
to s mount to 100 acres in 30 years, (22.). 

Bishop Meade noticed that the destruc- 
tive work of Powhatan creek, aided bv 
the river, had been mucth more rapid at 
the western end of the Island than at the 
point nearest the church. The patent of 
S; rah Drummond, wife of the patriot 
William Drummond, in 1662, calling for 1-2 
■ if land on the river, and placing the 
churchyard on tin- west shows that the 
church must have always stood near the 
water's edge. The danger mmes most 
threateningly from above where the old 
Jamestown fori now under water, and the 
powder n agazine lay, and should be con- 



sidered, as it no doubt will be, in set- 
I ting up the water guard. 

After Bishop Meade's visit, the cause- 
| way from Xeck of Land was built by 
! Major William Allen, the then proprietor. 
j In 1857 a celebration attended by 8,000 peo- 
j pie was held at Jamestown under the 
: auspices of the old Jamestown Society, 
j at which John Tyler was the orator and 
J James Barron Hope was the f-oez. The 
j Governor, Henry A. Wise, was present 
j anl delivered an eloquent address, (23.) 

During the war of 1861 the Island was 
i fortified by the Confederate forces, but 
i on their abandonment of the Peninsula 
I it was held by the Federal forces. 
j The rest of the history of the place 
I is familiar to many present. When the 
j college of William and Mary was reor- 
| ganized in 1888, one of the earliest cel- 
| ebrations attempted by the faculty and 
! students was held in the very shadow of 
j the old tower. Then came tie munifi- 
! cent act of Mr. and Mrs. Edward JO. Bar- 
j ney, presenting 22 1-2 acres of land, in- 
cluding church-yard, to the Association 
i for the Preservation of Virginia ^vntiqui- 
I ties finally followed, through the 
I splendid energy of some of the n. embers 
1 of that body, what had long been desired 
I —a grant from Congress at its last e*s- 
| sion, of a suitable appropriation to pre- * 
j vent the future ravages of the waters. 
We can see the work intended to attain 
| this object going on about us under the 
! competent superintendence- of Major 
Goodwin. The strong rock is lining the 
I shore of the river, and we may rejoice 
that the subtle waters will beat in vain 
upon its frozen face. 

Hither the pilgrim may come in years 
far distant to behold some iast sign of 
these who laid the foundation-stone of 
this great republic. Yonder broken stee- 
ple will ring out peels of inspiration to 
generations of posterity. Around this 
"old cradle of an infant world" in which 
"a nestling empire lay,' The genius of 
philosophy, the spirit of romsnee, and the 
muse of poetry, as has been aptly said, 
will delight to linger. 

The statesman will find suggestive 
thoughts in the labors of John Smith, of 
Sir Thomas Dale, Sir George A'ardley, 
Sir Francis Wyat, John Utie, &. Richard 
Bennett, William Claiborne, Nathaniel . ) 
Bacon, Jr., and Col. Francis Morsan.U'jlf^ 
Pocahontas will chase imagination into » 
fairy tales as long as yonder steeple 
stands; and clown the centuries will come 
in rippling verses, like music of the waters 
by the church-yard, the songs of George 
Sandys, whom Dryden pronounced the 
best versifier of his age, and who resided 
hero in the infancy of the settlement.**^* 
Our college is favored above all others 
in being situated in this most historic 
portion of the State. It is impossible 
that the student can live in the presence 
of these and similar associations without 
being inspired by them. Well did John 
Gcode ask in Congress— "Whore else upon 
this continent will you find >uch associa- 
tions to quicken the pulse and inspire 
the heart of the young with :-.ll ihose 
elevating principles and lofty eh sires 
which make ambition virtue?" 

The- life of each man is like a block of 
marble, waiting for the monumental in- 



(6) 



scription, and it is the irspiration born ot 
such localities as these that may cut 
the letters deep. Come when the inspira- 
tion may, be like the sculptor boy in the 
verses; ready for action: 
"Chisel in hand, stood a sculptor boy, 

With a marble block before him, 
And his face lit up with a smile of joy, 

As an angel dieam passed o'er him. 
He carved that dream in the shapeless 
stone, 

With many a sharp incision, 
With Heaven's own light the sculpture 
shone— 

He had caught that angel vision." 
"Children of life are we as we stand, 

With our lives uncarved before us, 
Waitir.g the hour when at God's command 

Our life-dream passes o'er us. 
If we carve it then in shapeless stone, 

With many a sharp incision, 
Its Heavenly beauty will be our own, 

Our lives, that ai'gel vision." 
NOTES. 

1. Meade's Old Churches. 

2. "A brief declaration of the planta- 
tion, &c." 

3. William Strachey's History of Tra- 
vaile in Virginia Brittania. 

2. "A Brief Declaration of the Planta- 
tion, &c." 

5. Stith, citing original documents. 

6. Ibid. 

7. Neill's Virginia Vetusta. 

8. Hotten's Immigrants. 

9. Calendar of Colonial State Papers. 

10. Conway Robinson's Notes from Rec- 
ords in the Old General Court Office. 

11. Hening's Statutes, Vol. 2 

12. Report of the Royal Commissioners 
— Sainsbury Mss., Anne Cotton says 16 
or 18 brick buildings, and she omits men- 
tin of any framed houses which must 
have been, as the commissioners said 
"considerable" in number. 

13. Beverley's History of Virginia: 
Campbell. 



14. John Blair's Diary, Mss. 

15. Perry's Historical Collections— Vir- 
ginia. 

16. See R. S. Thomas's Narrative re- 
garding Smithfield Church, in Vol. II., 
Virginia Historical Society Collections. 

17. Thacher's Military Journal. 

18. Sprague's Annals of the American 
church," Vol. V, containing sketch of 
Bishop Madison. 

19. At the celebration in 1807, orations 
were made by Briscoe G. Baldwin, after- 
wards a judge, and John Madison, and 
odes by C. K. Blanchard and Leroy An- 
derson—all students. 

At the celebration in 1822 the orators 
were also students. William Barton Rog- 
ers, Robert Saunders, and Mr. McCree- 
ry, the first two of whom were after- 
wards distinguished professors in the Col- 
lege. (See Richmond Enquirei of those 
days, and Richmond Dispatch of May 
12, 1895, which contains an excellent ac- 
count.) 

20. Field Book of the Revolution, by 
Benson J. Lossing. 

21. Meade's Old Churches, &c. 

22. Ludwell Mss.. in Virginia Historical 
Society Library. 

23. Southern Literary Messenger. The 
first pictorial representation of the James- 
town tower appeared in a magazine issued 
at Richmond in 1805, by Lopis H. Girar- 
din, sometime Professor of Modern Lan- 
guages, Histcry and GeogTaphy in Wil- 
liam and Mary College, later a teacher in 
a Female Seminary in Richmond, and 
who wrote also the continuation of Burk's 
History of Virginia. This magazine, alike 
pretentious in title and form, died with its 
first numbers. It was in quarto, with six- 
fine plates colored among them the 
Jamestown tower. The engravings were 
by Frederick Bosler, and the title of the 
publication was "Amenitates Graphicae," 
with other descriptive words. R. A. 
Brock has a copy of this rare work. 






4. U 



i< Ml i 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



I 

014 444 004 3 * 




